And the toxic algae bloom likely won't return for awhile — at least until next summer, according to a red tide expert at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce.

There's no red tide from the Jupiter Inlet just south of Martin County to the Sebastian Inlet on the Indian River-Brevard county line, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission map posted Thursday night shows.

The last holdouts — Blowing Rocks Preserve and Jupiter Point Marina, sites in southernmost Martin County that had red tide in samples taken Nov. 1 — were free of the toxic algae in samplings taken Wednesday and reported Thursday.

Red tide also is gone from Brevard and Palm Beach counties.

Along Florida's East Coast, only sites at Boynton Beach and northern Miami Beach had red tide and in very low levels, in samples taken Wednesday and Tuesday, respectively.

More importantly, the Florida Keys are free of red tide. That means a bloom from the Gulf of Mexico isn't likely to move through the Keys, get caught in the Gulf Stream and land on the Treasure Coast again.

That's what researchers believe happened when red tide first showed up in late September in Martin County and spread north as far as Cape Canaveral — killing hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of fish. It also gave people who went to the beach (or anywhere near the coast) coughs, scratchy throats, runny noses and watery eyes.

Jim Chalmers, of Blue Dog Rentals in Vero Beach, photographs the remains of a large grouper along the shoreline just north of Tracking Station Beachfront Park, while managing a group of day laborers cleaning the beach of dead fish killed by red tide on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in Indian River County. "We're on the back end of the cleanup, things are going smoothly," Chalmers said. "Fortunately we have not seen a lot of large marine life, considering the scale of all the small marine life. We're taking care of it (cleanup) step by step." ERIC HASERT/TCPALM

West Coast bloom

Red tide continues to plague Florida's West Coast, as it has for more than a year. High levels of the toxic algae mostly stretch from St. Petersburg south to Fort Myers.

Conditions aren't favorable for red tide from the West Coast to make its way to the East Coast until next summer and the start of the rainy season, said Malcolm McFarland, a Harbor Branch research associate.

"During the upcoming dry season, there won't be a lot of rainfall runoff to carry nutrients into the water to feed the red tide," McFarland said. "That will change with the rainy season. It will be warmer in the summer, too; and red tide thrives in warm water."

Red tide blooms on the East Coast are "pretty much once-every-10-years things because so many conditions have to line up: the weather, wind, currents and nutrients," McFarland said. "So hopefully, it will be at least that long before we see another one. But that's impossible to predict."